Poznan, 24/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 24 November, the European Parliament (EP), the Committee of the Regions (CoR) and the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) stated quite categorically that cohesion is a key policy for Europe. They said that there should be no question of reducing the budget as proposed by the European Commission for the 2014-2020 period. According to these institutions it is also necessary to strengthen integration by giving local and regional authorities more power and casting away the Sword of Damocles hanging over them with the threat of funds suspension (macro-economic conditionality).
On the eve of the informal Council of European ministers for regional development, the Polish Presidency welcomed to Poznan the key institutional actors involved in cohesion policy: Danuta Hübner (EPP, Poland) - chair of the EP committee for regional development, Mercedes Bresso - President of the CoR, and Staffan Nilsson - President of the EESC. They had been invited to attend discussions on the integrated regional development approach, together with Elzbieta Bienkowska, Polish Minister for Regional Development. Discussions mainly focused on the Commission's legislative proposals to revise cohesion policy (see other article) which will be on the European ministers' informal meeting agenda. The EP, CoR and EESC representatives agree on the fact that member states should not in any way reduce contributions to cohesion in the next multiannual European financial framework for 2014-2020. Bresso, was quick to point out that “member states with concerns about the European budget being frozen would have just as many concerns given that the Union has received new competencies in different domains (…) We are strongly opposed to any form of re-nationalistion of agricultural and cohesion policies.” Nilsson shares this opinion and pointed out that they needed a strong budget for cohesion policy, and that member states themselves needed reasonable funding. Hübner insisted on the fact that policies funded from the European budget should be thought out so that there is a lever effect and funding is used appropriately.
Opposing sanctions. On the question of macro-economic conditionality (suspension of European structural funds for countries that infringe the Stability and Growth Pact rules), participants were very critical. Hübner strongly opposed the carrot and stick philosophy, which she said had not worked well in the past: “why should we suppose that it would work any better now?” Bresso emphasised that possible funding suspensions for failure to respect to the stability pact are counter-productive: “recent Commission proposals to increase European co-funding rates to speed up regional development programme implementation clearly show that the opposite is required to relaunch investment!”
They both considered that the crisis the European Union is currently experiencing provides an opportunity for further reflection and implementing far-reaching reforms: structural reforms, for Hübner, democratic reforms for Bresso, who wanted to go beyond their representative democracies to a more “participatory” kind of democracy. It would be better to take into account the fact that the local and regional authorities are ever more necessary as a pre-condition for the success of cohesion policies and European integration, she argued. Nilsson concluded that “multi level governance must be given a follow up and not remain a dead letter”. (MD/transl.fl)